


Accolade

by PaxVobis



Series: Original Album Series [7]
Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Armor, Church of the Black Klok, Drabble, Fate, Gen, Inspired by Fanart, Knights - Freeform, Pickles POV, Post-Doomstar Requiem, Priest Charles, Prompt Fic, Prophecy, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 23:52:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8305925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxVobis/pseuds/PaxVobis
Summary: A knighting.> drabble about one character dressing another, or the other way around> Nodus Tollens: The realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore.> Charles, Pickles





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [requiescatinpace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/requiescatinpace/gifts).



> inspired, in part, by leftoverse's fanart, "a guide to identifying pickles" as here - cartoon gore warning: [[x]](https://67.media.tumblr.com/8772a29405cad3a9d599947286f35d43/tumblr_mxbf320Dfp1rahv9io4_400.gif)

  ☾ 

 

As soon as Pickles had laid eyes upon the armour, the tremors had started.  Five empty shells standing, void faced, silent in the gutted and ruined chamber; the darts of light from broken panes in the stained glass windows overhead dappling their bodies, the smell of dust, of centuries undisturbed, the still air, the dead air.  Waiting for them, a prophecy spelt out in the coloured panes above.  His eyes darting from lead figure to lead figure in the glass, beasts, steeds – the hollow man.

 _I am not this person.  And we are not these people._   It had gone beyond questioning if he could be heroic, beyond the possessions and the movement of the earth; it was one thing to free your brother or fight your demons, and another to be handed a black dagger and told to murder.  Not even asked, but told that you would.  Pickles was not this person, this crusader; not the owner of this empty shell.  And yet, when he lifted the hauberk from where it was presented, he felt a chill race down the nerves of his arms from where the mail touched his bare fingers.  It seemed the exact size of his shoulders, turned his gut.  On either side of him, Murderface and Toki inspecting their garments, discovering the same.  And regarding them all from a distance, Offdensen in his black robes – his _robes_.  Like a priest.  Like he said he was.  A cool distance between them, a cool pride and expectance.  It turned Pickles’ stomach, to even think of the betrayal and lies and – and – and _cosmic_ _artifice_ – inherent in where he stood now.

But it couldn’t be so.  _I am not this person_.  A Black Klok acolyte hurried to Toki, helping him buckle the leather under armour in place and then lift the mail over his head.  Pickles thought himself cleverer than the one who came to help him and shooed him away with an angry hiss and a choice word, instead copying Toki and the acolyte to his left as he bound the leathers to his scrawny body, struggled to lift the mail over his head.  It fell upon his shoulders with a great, dampened weight, and from there – thinking he knew better, _knowing_ he knew better with an arrogant confidence, Pickles forged ahead, fastening the cuisses and greaves around his legs, the pointed sabatons over his sneakers (inwardly laughing at the thought). 

Looking down at himself – it was absurd.  He glanced at his bandmates, _brothers_ _in arms_ , all so comical in their garb.  An acolyte attempting to fasten what looked like a steel fried chicken bucket around Nathan’s fat head as the guy complained from within its echoing depths.  Not much left – Pickles hefted the gauntlets, easily the most beautiful part of the armour, intricately decorated with bronze figures shining in the dull light of the stained windows.  Someone must have polished them for him.  He pulled the left on first, set ill at ease by how perfectly it fit, and clenched his fist in the stiff metal.  It felt powerful.  It looked powerful.  The second soon followed.  Not much left, not much left, then they could be gone.  With a smash of steel, he saw Skwisgaar fall out of the corner of his eye, the Swede’s waif-like body collapsing into the display of armour he’d been changing into.  And maybe he grinned to see his misfortune, but not for long.

Pickles had let his confidence get away from him.  His fingers in the gauntlets were clumsy, and even as he lifted the neckpiece could feel it slipping through his hands.  A feeble cry blurted from him as it dropped, and Pickles winced his eyes shut for the smash of steel onto stone that never came.  When he opened his eyes again, a presence stood over him, a hand steadying his shaking shoulder like he hadn’t realised how much he was trembling in the shell, shivering until it rattled around him.  The black sleeved hand, which had caught the gorget – Offdensen reaching around him with the ornate neck piece and murmuring “Stay still, Pickles,” before placing it around his neck with a preternatural cool, the metal touching the underside of his chin cold and his body jerked as the High Holy Priest buckled it tight in place.

Pickles stayed still.  It was beyond him how Offdensen could accept this so readily, could move with total, practised confidence to attach the pauldrons to this neck plate, every clasp and buckle the High Priest closed on him tighter and more secure than Pickles had been able to do himself.  He stood paralysed as Charles moved to fix the rest of the attachments, fitting Pickles inside the armour like a second skin.  He could feel the chill of that detached intimacy move over his skin, prickle on the backs of his arms and neck, a potent rush of unease and deep safety flooding into his brain like cold water as Charles attended him, locked him in, and Pickles closed his eyes to savour it – the numb of his lips, the dissociation, the eerie jerks of Charles’ firm grip as he handled his body from outside the armour.

He was awoken by Offdensen turning him roughly by the shoulder, opening his stance to face the High Holy Priest.  Blinking out of his trance, Pickles could see the others finishing off beyond him, frightening dark figures in their plate mail; slowly his focus narrowed on the cool gaze of the man in front of him, the metal under his chin and against his jaw growing warm on his skin.  Offdensen held up the diadem, the narrow and ornate headpiece, for Pickles’ inspection, and seeing the worry knotted in the younger man’s eyes up at him, raised it with ceremonial revere and placed it on Pickles’ crown.

And there was resignation there, a frightened bird in Pickles’ heart.  Charles smiled to see it come to roost within his charge, a disconnected pride playing about his otherwise pious countenance.  Here, at the end of it all, Pickles finally knew there would be no help, no escape from this fate, in their old friend and a grave cold grief flooded his mind; like they had been escorted to the slaughterhouse, fattened and shepherded only for butchery. 

Yet he winced as Charles gently cuffed him around the temple, striking the diadem with the heel of his palm dismissively and quipping with a distant grin, “Go get ‘em, tiger.”  Great, another lame send-off from Charles.  For all the grotesque, the warping - - some things just never changed.

☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾


End file.
